Managing Work Groups

Formal And Informal Work Groups

An organization can be described as a group of people working toward common goals. Within any organization there are two groups, formal groups and informal groups.

Formal groups are official and created by management e.g. divisions, departments, units, work teams and committees.Informal groups arise from member interactions e.g. people having tea together meet to share ideas.

Why People FormGroups

(a)    Natural attractions—people have inborn tendencies to form into groups, to work and live together.
(b)    Survival—people gather together to survive being alone for long periods of time can affect our emotional health badly e.g. what happens to people put under solitary confinement.
(c)    Interdependence—people interdepend mainly because of human limitations and weaknesses. People form into groups to overcome personal limitations.

Kinds of Groups

A group is two or more people who interact regularly to accomplish a common goal

    •  at least two people must be involved
    •  must interact regularly
    •  have a common purpose

(a)    Functional Group is created by the organization to accomplish a range of goals without a definite time limit.
(b)    A Task Group is created by the organization to accomplish a limited number of goals within a stated or implied time.
(c)    Informal Group also called interest group created by organizational members for purposes that may or may not be related to the organization and has no time horizon. Managers should recognize the existence and importance of the informal organization (the overall pattern of influence and interaction defined by the total set of informal groups within the organization).